


book of tales

by soundofez



Category: Original Work, The Little Mermaid - All Media Types
Genre: Fairy Tale Retellings, Fantasy, Gen, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-07
Updated: 2016-06-07
Packaged: 2018-07-13 00:22:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7130663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soundofez/pseuds/soundofez
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>they are not defenseless, no; they fight and they break and they win.</p><p>latest: <b>born of seafoam</b>// they desired her kind, so she rose as a goddess and judged mankind and found them wanting. though she came from water, she razed like fire, her hair and her shell shining and crimson, as merciful and unforgiving as the sun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	book of tales

Ariel loves the sun and the wind and the sound of breaking waves. She spends her days on her rock guarding the ocean and basking in the brilliant sun, flipping her red hair and shimmering tail at the erthmen.

She flees when they approach her en masse, of course. She knows how the erthmen will carry her off, away from the ocean, away from her home, to kill her for her scales or to keep her as a pretty pet, it’s difficult to know. When it’s just one, though, seeking her favor distinctly from his peers, she smiles and invites him and offers him a kiss and the embrace of the depths. His flesh feeds her pets, her flounders and her eels and her crabs.

The erthmen leave trinkets for her on her rock— gems and scents and the like. She tucks them away in her seaweed bag and they, too, decorate her collection, sometimes alongside their gifter’s bones.

“Such a pretty maid,” Ursula tuts at her. “What a waste, to be put on guard duty every day.”

“Such a valued advisor,” Ariel replies sweetly, “trapped here under the ocean, unable to spare the time to greet the sun.”

Ursula pauses. “You’re right, Princess,” she muses. “But what of the erthmen?”

“Borrow my song,” Ariel offers. “If you have need, it will help you escape them.”

So Ariel stays under the sea that day, drifting silently after her father while Ursula swims to the surface and mounts her rock and flirts with the erthmen. When the older mermaid returns, she overflows with laughter and sunlight, and she returns Ariel’s song with gratitude.

“Let me borrow your song again some day, Princess,” Ursula pleads.

“For as long as Father permits, I can lend it once a moon, when it fills,” Ariel agrees.

Ursula glows twelve times more. Ariel thinks little of the matter until the night Ursula does not return.

“Ariel,” her father seethes, “I saw Ursula happy and thought it good, but I must have my advisor returned. Take what you need, but do not return without her.”

So Ariel takes a sharpened shell and a rare erthspell and seeks her song. She rises from the sea and flirts and flips her way past the erthmen, who gawk and gape and fall to her feet, and she walks among them like a goddess.

She commands them with gestures, demanding to know what became of the creature who was taken from the sea. They bow and scrape and wring their wrists in despair at her silence until one of them finally understands and guides her to the strange dead reef of the thief.

She can hear Ursula, singing and sobbing with Ariel’s song, begging for freedom, begging to return home. The erthmen who pass ignore the pleas, and Ariel vows vengeance.

She finds Ursula swiftly, takes back her song, and waits for the thief to return. When he does, he is ecstatic and grovels, deferential to the divinity who has emerged from the sea. He blubbers and weeps at her feet for his sins, and she flips him away from her with disdain.

“How much did Ursula hurt?” Ariel sings, and he sings back, “Not one bit, not my love.”

“How much do you know?” Ariel sings, and he sings back, “Nothing, nothing at all.”

“How much have you told?” Ariel sings, and he sings back, “No one, the stories are for mine ears alone.”

“How much truth does he speak?” Ariel sings, and Ursula sings back, “None, Princess.”

So Ariel takes her shell from her hair and draws a line through the liar’s neck and thinks ruefully that erthmen are too heavy in the air to drag to her collection.

“Come, Ursula,” she commands, and grants her the erthspell. The reddened shell she tucks again in her hair, and together they set off.

“Forgive me, Princess,” Ursula sighs. “I should never guard the sea again.”

“No, Advisor,” Ariel sings, “the erthmen should learn instead the wrath of the sea for stealing from her.”

Ursula returns to the waves, but Ariel remains to teach how vengeful water can be.


End file.
